Re(View): City of Dreadful Night ~ Ensemble Stage

I am having a lot of fun. It is the most fulfilling performance I’ve done in a while. I have worked with the company for four years, and it is something of an artist’s paradise. Cool weather, an amazing facility, and an organic atmosphere inside the organization and out around town. Finally, I am acting in a Mainstage production, and I am excited to have the challenge of working alongside other actors who are crowd-favorites here in Banner Elk, NC. I feel right at home onstage; it helps that Nigro wrote this piece to feel natural (at least for my character). Philly works the late shift at the diner which the other characters frequent. We don’t know a lot about him until the end, so I can’t spoil anything for you – you have to come see the play in person for that information.

What I like about playing Philly is finding the moments where he thinks himself a tough guy, but quickly retracts like a puppy around the big boys. Within each scene, you get glimpses of different sides of him. In my brain, I am channeling some of Paulie Walnuts and Chrissy Moltisanti of The Sopranos along with my partner’s extended family and a dash of Seinfeld’s Jack Klompus. This mostly helped me find the cadence and nuances of the dialects of specifically that sort of New York voice, but sometimes helped figure out how Philly moves and how he reacts to stress. Of course, there were moments still hard to pin how best to interpret the writing, and Director Gary Smith was extraordinarily helpful through his insight into the character and (as a good director should) often found something better hidden inside the beat.